Wednesday, January 12, 2011

It's actually been quite an enjoyable day, it hasn't been a common day when I have just sat back and watched most of the second series of Bones and just got stuck into a lot of knitting that I have left unfinished for a while.

I kind of was wondering why I do knit in the first place, apart from simply being able to do all the stitches and finish up everything to a good standard. It's kind of an interesting hobby for a guy to have, but I don't really see it as being anything effeminate in any way, to be honest, although I know that heaps of people would tend to disagree with that.

Actually, it has been a really good ice breaker with the opposite sex in general, which is always good. But again that isn't the real reason why I like to knit so much.

I suppose that it is generally a sense of accomplishment by being able to set out a plan to start something, and then spend hundreds of laborious hours of work and finally ending up with a finished project. In all honesty, we don't really have the climate here in Sydney to warrant me knitting things all the year round, but I still do it for some reason.

And then I guess that there is the whole business of artistic expression. I have a belief that everybody, in some way or another, has some artistic nature to themselves. Whether it be designing curves on a math plane, drawing anime, making music, creating movies or even just taking a liking to them, they're all forms of expression, and I think that it has to come out every now and again. For me, there is nothing more perfect than wearing a piece of clothing that has a history, where you have been involved in the creation of something that has so much of yourself in it. Being able to say that you made something yourself is always nice.

It's not all about the attention from others (although it is an added bonus), just being able to wear a nice pair of woollen socks in the winter feel a little bit warmer when they're hand knit. For me, it's more than just a nifty craft, it's something that I put a lot of my time and effort into making things look good. Everything I knit has a character, and that's something that I really love about the whole process.

Oh, and it's really relaxing once you've got it done pat. Not so relaxing if you're trying to struggle through row after row of complicated patterns, but if you can just chug along in a basic pattern, it's really nice to pop on a movie or, in today's case, a tv series, and just let your mind wander a little bit. But not too far, you don't want to be dropping too many stitches now :)